V-RADIO Blog

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Recently I was given the privilege of reviewing the Venus Project's new film “Paradise or Oblivion” before release. I talked with Roxanne Meadows ahead of time, going over the details and all of the work that went into it. The Venus Project has been hard at work looking through their hours and hours of archived footage to put together a strong presentation. Some of it from tours of the Venus Project, some of it from lectures Jacque has given recently, and still more from over 60+ hours of unused footage that was shot during the making of “The Future by Design”.

Future by Design” concentrated more on Jacque, his background and his designs where as Paradise or Oblivion you will get to see some excellent elaborations by Jacque Fresco on more of the “nuts and bolts” of the social direction that is supported by the Venus Project.

That footage alone was sufficient reason to watch the film. But there is plenty of other great clips used in the film. I actually realized some of it came from the time I had visited the Venus Project, which brought a smile to my face. Throughout the film it also brought to bear the reality of our world slowly moving towards collapse with footage that suggests the "Occupy" movement is part of that pain signal of society.

The movie was narrated by Joel Holt, who did a wonderful job of articulating himself and telling the “story” of the film. His voice was the perfect blend of “honest” with “serious”. The presentation provided because of it gave a sense of urgency to the problems in the world without being “spooky” or sensationalist.

Overall, I feel this film did an excellent job of sharing with the audience the problems that the Venus Project seeks to solve, and the solutions that we need. If you are a veteran of activism involving the Venus Project it is worth watching to see footage of Jacque you may not be familiar with even if you are familiar with the material presented. It is an excellent tool for introducing people to the concepts of the Venus Project. And while I do not feel it replaces “Welcome to the Future” in my heart as my favorite film about Jacque's work, it provides a further elaboration to that work. Finally there is a modern film about the Venus Project with no baggage from other films associated with the work. And it does all of this in less then an hour.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

So a little while ago, I did a show called “Thoughts on Thanksgiving”. I did the show while I was sitting in seclusion during a Thanksgiving dinner I had been invited to on my way to Occupy Flint. One of the things I mentioned was a picture called “Define Necessity”. A picture with a starving African child next to a picture of a typical American Christmas. Complete with a tree, presents, etc. I remember the picture well, as I had put it up on my V-RADIO Facebook page. I went to look for it again today and found it had been deleted. I did a search for it, and found out that it had been deleted from many Facebook pages.

So I decided to share the photo again. And was not surprised that many people clicked like on the photo. But I was surprised that a few people very loudly protested the photo being posted on Christmas. A couple of comments that come to mind:

“Hey man, I support TZM but why would you post this on Christmas???”

“Lighten the fuck up! Xmas is the only day of the year when you and your family can feel free! TVP really needs to re-evaluate some stuff!”

There were some other comments that were even less polite. And the conversation is still going on there. I found it interesting that people would still be protective of their feelings about Christmas.

My point in posting this, just as my points I made during the "Thoughts on Thanksgiving episode" is to try and pair up two realities that people usually refuse to link. And that is that we are doing well in the 1st world, usually at the expense of the people in the 3rd world. People do not want to be reminded that there are people doing terribly in other countries because we are doing well in the West, or in the more wealthy countries of the world. The people who were upset with me mostly seemed to be angry that I rattled their cage and want to be left alone in the bubble they put themselves in. They do not want to face that they constantly turn their backs on the economic reality that there are people not only doing worse then they are, that they are doing absolutely horribly.

Later on in the conversation on the facebook group, one of them said that he didn't like that this was happening, but that he lived a hard life working for his boss at home and all that, so therefore it was OK that he practiced Christmas. I have a feeling the boy in the picture would happily trade his life of not having anything or the ability to work to get anything for the drudgery of wager slavery that most people in the West are so hounded by. The holidays are a time when we are the most brainwashed by the advertising of this consumer culture. And the notion that we somehow feel "free" then is absurd.

So I decided to talk about Christmas, and really dig into the issue. So there are two major elements to this issue I want to touch on. The first would be the religious aspect, and the second would be the consumerist aspect. The two are linked in many ways. But both deserve their own attention.

I recently found a video called “Why was Christmas banned in America until 1820?” The video was posted by a Christian who no doubt was part of the few sects that do not practice Christmas, Halloween, etc. Most of these Christians are upset that the holiday is not being celebrated with enough emphasis on Christ's birth. The problem is that the holiday was designed from the start to attempt to attract pagans to Christianity. And that Christ was according to the bible born in the Spring anyway.

The same can be said of the “Easter Bunny” and “Easter Eggs” being fertility symbols and being used during the spring festival of fertility. No mention of using rabbits or eggs in remembrance of Christ rising from the dead in the bible.

Point of fact the majority of Holidays practiced in the supposedly “Christian West” all have Pagan origins. The truth is, Christianity is kind of boring. You will notice that virtually every symbol that is used to “celebrate” Christmas is not in any way related to anything biblical. At no point does any of the prophets or other supposedly divine influenced individuals in the bible even suggest a holiday for the birth of Christ. There are many holidays practiced by Pagans around the same time as what we understand to be Christmas however. Including the birth of the sun god Mithra. And in fact, some of the practices that are seen in most Christian homes that are supposedly about Christmas are even pointed out as something Christians should not be doing at all.

Jeremiah 10:2-5

King James Version (KJV) 2Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.5They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

So here we have a tradition honored by Christians all over the world. Despite the fact that their bible calls it out specifically as being an incorrect practice. There are many others like it:

Mistletoe: In the pagan tradition if you catch a lady under mistletoe you can pretty much have your way with her. In the “Christian” tradition you can just give her a kiss and she is not allowed to resist. I would say that is pretty self explanatory as to how it is not Christian.

The Yule log: An element of the pagan holiday “Yule” dates back to Vikings and Norseman. They would cut down the biggest tree they could find, drag it through the streets and light it on fire. They would use Holly to help keep the fire hot. The goal was to have it burn for twelve days. During those twelve days drunken orgies and revelry would take place, and every day a different sacrifice would be offered to their gods. Sometimes these sacrifices happened to be human beings. So consider that the next time your family lights up the “Yule log” to honor the birth of Christ.

“Deck the halls with bows of holly....fa-lah-lah-lah-lah, lah-lah-lah-lah...”

The use of holly, wreaths, all of it is borrowed heavily from Pagan traditions, and has no basis in the bible at all. There is lots of information available about this stuff, and some if it is downright grizzly.

The character Santa Claus, is another one of the greats. His origins start out with the same fellow they were honoring when they were burning that log for twelve days. “Father Christmas” to some. He took on many forms. But at one point he also had a side kick that was known to be a horned demon named “Ruprect”. The horned demon would sometimes take off with the really bad children. The horned demon eventually evolved into the reindeer. Though they don't really talk about that part of it anymore.

The fact that this entire story of Santa Claus basically re-enforces religion's tendency to scare people into behaving in whatever way the people at the top of that religious pyramid want them to, should be obvious. But it goes a bit deeper then that. We are taught to lie to our children about the existence of this being.

One of the things I found ironic in the video is that since it was made by Christians whining about how the holiday they stole in the first place was not spending enough time emphasizing on Christ, was that those same people complained about this tradition of parents lying to their children about the existence of Santa Claus in an effort to control them. And that even if children are naughty or nice the kids still get the presents on Christmas morning.

Hmm.... well I certainly agree with them. Lying about the existence of a being who punishes people for being whatever the church says is “bad” is pretty immoral. And I would say lying to someone about the existence of a being who rewards people for being “good” is pretty silly as well. Considering the fact that bad people prosper, and good people struggle constantly it would seem if there is such a being he has fallen asleep at his post. So sure, lying about Santa Claus is WRONG! It is a distraction for our children from the uh.... truth about that other guy we lie to them about! Oh yeah! GOD!

So people are for religious reasons very attached to Christmas. And one of the things that occurred to me when I was thinking about that took me back to a time I visited a church to get some extra food for my family when we were in need. Mind you, this church was actually a pretty cool place. Nobody was judging anyone. Everyone was gathering and having fun. What occurred to me though was that these people seemed to need an excuse to do this. It's like it kind of robbed them of the true reward for their generosity, which was the act of giving itself. They would say they were doing the “work of the lord” when in reality they should have been helping people in need because THEY wanted to. The Lord did not gather that food for them. The Lord did not spend the time giving it out. He did not provide any of it. It was the hard work of the people running that charity who brought that to the world. And they cheated themselves out of feeling that kind of well deserved satisfaction at doing something to help others. I caught myself wondering how many of them were doing what they were doing because they wanted to go to heaven? How many of them would still be doing it if they did not think it would get them into heaven?

I also remember the various charities who get together and ensure that the homeless get Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners, which while I applaud, some of these people only do this kind of work on the specific holidays. As if the homeless don't need help the other 363 days a year. I also see people do each other favors or whatever they might not otherwise in the name of “well hey, it's Christmas...”. Like maybe they help someone get their car out of the snow. Or maybe they let someone keep the change from a transaction. Again, why do we need an excuse to be good to each other? And what is our excuse for NOT being as good to people the rest of the year?

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone behaved like they seem to think they only have to behave for Christmas? What if every day people went out of their way to help each other rather then only on these few religious holidays a year? THAT would be something. THAT would change the world.

When I was young I remember the second job I had working as a dishwasher at a Pizza place. I worked really hard that December because I wanted to buy gifts for everyone in my family. And that is what I did. I was really excited to see the look on their faces when they opened them. I eventually became addicted to giving people things. When I became an atheist I did not stop giving people things. But I no longer needed an excuse. I gave people things because I enjoyed sharing something with someone that made them happy. I was free of any religious guidance for the giving of gifts. And to this day I still do that. I will see something that I know would mean a lot to a friend of mine or relative and get it for them. I do this throughout the year. I don't need any one special day to do it. And I don't need to stomp on anyone on Black Friday to pull it off.

I feel the tradition of telling children that some mythical being known as Santa Claus gave them the gifts under the tree robs the child of feeling that connection with the person who actually gave them the gifts. And that is what it is, it is a connection between the person you are giving the gift to, and yourself. In that one moment you have reached out and enriched the life of another person with a selfless gift of your own. You also rob yourself. You are the one giving the gift, it should be a powerful moment between you and that person. Not them and another non-existent entity.

To conclude the point about religion, I would suggest that when we give gifts for specific holidays in the name of beings who don't exist, we are basically making “sacrifices” to these “entities”. Is it the same thing as burning someone on the Yule log to keep Father Christmas happy? No. But you are sacrificing the real connection that man should have with man, absent any supernatural excuse.

You are also sacrificing your own justly earned satisfaction out of doing something for someone when you credit it to the service of a being who for some reason is not around to help when it comes time to feed or clothe those in need. He seems to be around to take the credit though. Yet for some reason is never around to do the work.

To segway into the next part of this, one of my favorite quotes I once heard from a child. It's really perfect when you consider it covers the economics and religion of Christmas in one statement:

“Mommy, why does Santa Claus like rich kids more then poor kids?”

The dark side of social engineering has been seen by people who listen to my show, members of the Zeitgeist Movement and supporters of the Venus Project. It saturates every part of our culture. We live in a culture that was socially engineered to create people who are nearly religious in their pursuit of consumerism.

There are so many social stigmas associated with giving people a “good Christmas” and all of them revolve in some way around money. The fellow I quoted above kept talking about how Christmas is the only day a family can “feel free” meaning that they somehow feel free on that day.

I imagine in some families they might do a good job of convincing themselves of that. But the reality is that the consumer holiday creates all kinds of mental mayhem. One of my most vivid Christmas memories came from my early twenties. I was renting a room from someone who's family had invited me over to Christmas. Due to a car problem we were late. Eventually the guy's mother showed up, furious that we were not there on time. And I got to watch as an adult woman started physically assaulting her adult son in front of his wife and children for not being to Christmas on time. This might be somewhat of an extreme example. But I have seen the same thing play itself out over and over again to greater and lesser degrees in homes all around the country. A great deal of stress goes into ensuring that the holidays are “perfect”. I have watched families get into screaming matches about it. I have seen them go absolutely crazy over the turkey, ham, stuffing, or whatever other implements that you absolutely MUST have in order to be having a proper holiday where everyone is supposed to be getting together to enjoy one another's company. I have seen families go into a frenzy that eventually leads to fighting and all sorts of drama if any one of these implements is not utilized to it's full effect.

“DAMNIT! WE ARE RUINING CHRISTMAS! WE DON'T HAVE ANY STUFFING??? IF YOU HAD JUST DONE WHAT I SAID NONE OF THIS WOULD OF HAPPENED AND WE WOULD BE HAVING FUN RIGHT NOW!”

The further pressure in the situation comes from having all the best gifts. This is generally enforced throughout our entire culture. Parents are not seen as good parents if they do not provide for their children a “Good Christmas”. So combine this with the already out of control fervor that false institutions such as fashion, novelty, etc and you have an orgy for the 1% at the top of the food chain. They have us trained to be good little consumer monkeys, and Christmas is if anything the ultimate culmination of all their hard work to get us to work hard to make them rich.

The sheer lunacy of the situation takes some very hideous forms.

Here are some excerpts from an article in “The New York Times” about shopping on Black Friday. The article is called: “Wal-Mart worker trampled to death by frenzied Black Friday shoppers...”

In a sign of consumer desperation amid a bleak economy, the annual rite of retailing known as Black Friday turned chaotic and deadly, as shoppers scrambled for holiday bargains.

A Wal-Mart worker on Long Island, N.Y., died after being trampled by customers who broke through the doors early Friday, and other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man. At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals.

Fights and injuries occurred elsewhere at other stores operated by Wal-Mart, the nation's leading discount chain, which is one of the few retailers thriving in the current economy.

Meanwhile, two men at a crowded Toys "R" Us in Palm Desert, Calif., pulled guns and shot each other to death after women with them brawled, witnesses said.

While tussles and even broken bones are common when the doors open on Black Friday, this is apparently the first time someone was killed in the stampede. For some consumer psychologists, the mad scramble was a sign of the times.

"I think it ties into a sort of fear and panic of not having enough," said Joe Priester, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and a former president of the Society for Consumer Psychology. A herd mentality, he said, can lead individuals to feel anonymous, so much so that they are capable of trampling someone. "Fear combined with the group mentality?" he said. "It doesn't surprise me at all."

Walter Loeb, president of Loeb Associates, a retail consultancy, said there was shopping mania at Wal-Mart every year. But this year, he said, it seems "people are becoming irrational in their actions."

That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.

Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.

Witnesses and the police said the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, of Queens, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.

Some workers fought their way through the surge to get to Damour, but he had been fatally injured, police said. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau County police, called the scene "utter chaos" and said the "crowd was out of control." As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. "I've heard other people call this an accident, but it is not," he said. "Certainly it was a foreseeable act."

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like "savages." Shoppers' behavior was bad even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,' " Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."

Outbreaks weren't restricted to New York. At a Wal-Mart in Columbus, Ohio, Nikki Nicely, 19, jumped onto a man's back and pounded his shoulders when he tried to take a 40-inch Samsung flat-screen TV to which she had laid claim. "That's my TV!" Nicely, 19, shouted. "That's my TV!"

A police officer and security guard intervened, but not before Nicely took an elbow in the face. In the end, she was the one with the $798 television, marked down from $1,000. "That's right," she cried as her adversary walked away. "This here is my TV!"

I did a little research on some other incidents on that day.

In another incident, a woman allegedly defended her two teenagers who were being physically assaulted by other shoppers when they were trying to acquire X-box game consoles by using Pepper Spray.

A child was shopping with his grandfather in another store in Phoenix when shoppers tried to strip a video game out of the hands of the child. The grandfather slipped the video game under his shirt so that people could not steal the game from the child. This resulted in police throwing the man on the floor on his head as they suspected him of shoplifting. His blood was pouring out of his head while his grandson watched helpless to do anything but try to explain to the police what had taken place while his grandfather lied unconscious on the floor.

Interesting that security was on task for protecting the merchandise but not the lives of the people who have been lost during Black Friday.

I ended up watching videos of various Black Friday riots, and that is really what they are. Riots. In many cases what you are looking at looks like people desperately trying to get out of a burning building. It's like a feeding frenzy.

So what does this mean? Where does it come from? Again, we are taught that if we don't give the best gifts we are not the best friends or family members. We are taught that our self image should be directly linked to this. I have seen the quality of Christmas being brought up in child custody battles, where the parent who can offer a “better Christmas” gets preferential treatment. It also is weighed in general, as parents who are more financially well off will be seen as “better parents” in the legal system. Even if the parents in question are not emotionally or mentally supportive of the children.

Children are of course put in an awkward position in situations like that, as they do want gifts. The advertising industry as shown in the film “Consuming Kids” knows this all too well and exploits it to create an almost insatiable thirst on the part of children for specific gifts. And that is further re-enforced at school where they are made fun of if they don't have the latest toys or fashions.

A great deal of businesses derive almost half of their profits from holiday sales. There are so many industries built around the holidays themselves including the decorations, and all other facets of these “holidays”. You see it when the holiday decorations for the next holiday are already on display before the food from the last holiday is even cold. They play music in the stores appropriate to those holidays to constantly remind consumers that they should be doing their “duty” to their family and friends by seeking to buy gifts for them.

You are taught that the amount of money you spend on someone for these holidays is a critical measure of how much you care for them. You might literally feel guilty if you did not spend enough on them.

Big business pushes these holidays as they basically enslave the consumer cult masses to give them sacrifices on those days. Hallmark, the company known for it's greeting cards decided there was not enough holidays, and that apparently Valentine's day was not making them enough money so they created another holiday known as “Sweetest day” out of thin air. They did not even have to have a religious excuse. They simply guilt tripped consumers into the understanding that if you didn't get your significant other something on their created holiday that it meant you did not care about them. And fostered the idea that if your significant other didn't get anything for you on this day that it meant they did not care for you.

So what is it I am against? Am I against giving things to my friends and family? Am I against spending time with my friends and family? Am I against the “spirit of giving”? Quite the opposite. As I stated earlier I feel that the real spirit of giving comes from one person to another. That it should need no excuse. And that it should also not be an obligation. You are socially punished for not giving gifts during these consumer holidays. People are taught to believe you think less of them if you do not give them gifts on these days. And that in turn makes you even more obligated to give them gifts for fear of being thought of as someone who does not care.

Personally I think the idea that I am obligated to give someone something means it is not a gift. Such a notion is actually more akin to settling a debt. Is that what giving is about? Is it about a debt I owe to the people I care about? Or should it be about the elation I feel when I make someone happy who has made me happy?

So my suggestion is this. Don't wait for the holidays to show those you care that you care. Don't go out of your way to do so on the days the corporations have chosen for you. Because that means that you are only doing so as you are “obligated” to do so. Give out of your own sense of caring and devotion to the people in your life when you are ready to. And when you find something that would truly make them happy. Do as I did, and free yourself from the consumer cult practice that gift giving belongs to corporations. Take it back for yourself. And those you love.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

So I had a free weekend and decided to check out the “Occupy” movement in Detroit Michigan, about thirty minutes from my home in Chesterfield. It was cold, wet, and miserable. And I miss it already. I dragged some friends along with me Friday the 28th of October to check out the movement in Detroit. I got into some wonderful conversations and met some wonderful people. One of those conversations you can see on video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uduqumOMuUE or listen to the audio version here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/v-radio/2011/10/29/v-radio-at-occupy-detroit. After staying out as late as my friends wanted to I realized I needed to come back. So I came back Saturday ready to camp for the rest of the weekend.

I ran into some friends of mine from the Michigan chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement and they helped show me around. I volunteered to help with their general assembly, which was a great experience. I came there intent on reporting on what I saw and networking with fellow activists and I got a lot of great material. I was invited to participate in many of their meetings and have already realized that Occupy Detroit is going to be a second home to me. I only wish I could get out there more often. For the moment I have obligations at home that will prevent me from being there except on the weekends.

One of my goals when I decided to spend the weekend out in the frigid cold of crime ridden downtown Detroit was to try and get a feel for who was really there. What sort of people gave up their lives at home to live in a tent city in Grand Circus Park? If you were to believe the mainstream media it would be only people who fit the description of “lazy kids who just need to find a job...” After conducting a couple dozen interviews it was clear that this was not the case. Not that this surprised me. It never surprises me when the main stream media lies to cover up anything that might reflect poorly on their corporate masters. I took a lot of notes and wanted to share them with members of the Zeitgeist movement and listeners of V-RADIO. These interviews were conducted usually while standing outside in the freezing cold with a pencil and paper, but such is the life of the independent journalist. But it was worth it to touch base with these people.

People like Robert. Robert is 52 years old. He worked hard all of his life in many jobs. But his final job was driving a truck for Steve's Van Lines. Eventually his company initiated a “lock out” telling the employees that they could not return to work without a 30% pay cut and loss of all health insurance benefits. He and his associates in UAW Union 243 fought this for over a year. And finally it ended with a buy out. He was unable to find more work and eventually along with many other Michigan residents lost his home and is now homeless. Though you would of never known it to look at him. This man did not fit the typical description or stereotypes of the homeless. He was articulate, lucid, and intelligent. And would absolutely love to go back to work. He told about how restrictive life is in the shelters he has to move in and out of. And that he does not see how anyone would ever choose to live that life.

Then there was Justin. 19 years old. He grew up in a low income situation, with no involvement from his father. His mother worked long hours and he barely saw her, so he was mostly raised by his grandmother. This fellow made a powerful impression on me. He was wise well beyond his years. And after talking to him he told me that he started caring about and following politics when he was about ten years old. The internet had a big impact on his socialization. He learned about Occupy Wall Street during a trip to Europe, and decided he needed to come home and be part of Occupy Detroit. I asked him about memorable moments from his time with Occupy and he mentioned the 1st general assembly as being a powerful occasion with many people from all walks of life banding together. He also spoke of the first major rain they had while living in the park and how despite the rain and cold he and his fellow activists toughed it out. Another moment he mentioned was when they had decided to move their “kitchen” from one side of the park to the other, everyone formed a line so that equipment could be moved hand to hand to the other side. It was a serious moment of cooperation and community as everyone came together to do what needed to be done.

Then we move on to Todd. He shared with me that he came to the Occupy movement on his Birthday October 19th and had not left since. He said all he had ever asked for was world peace, and that his life in the camp was the closest thing he had ever seen to it. And that it was the “free-est” he had ever seen America. When I asked him about anything special that stood out about his experiences there he talked about how peaceful the camp was, and how everyone took care of one another.

Then there was Regina. She was raised by a single mother and was one of four kids. Her mother committed suicide during her childhood due to financial stress. Despite that she had been a successful business woman throughout much of her life. Owning and operating various small businesses, and re-educating herself every time these businesses failed. This happened about four times before the economy fell apart and she was unable to make payments on her car, which eventually lead to her losing it, and then shortly afterward her work, and then finally, her home.

The fellow I shared a tent with was named Jeff. Jeff grew up in a home where his parents were always two paychecks away from being homeless. But through all of that he managed to get an education and holds a masters in Mechanical Engineering. But now he is unemployed due to nobody really building anything in Michigan. He has applications in three different states and is willing to move for work, but nobody is hiring. He also shared with me the story of his parents losing their home. Both were hard workers all their lives and when the economy crashed so to did their ability to survive. He learned about Occupy Detroit literally by walking into the park and asking what was going on. When I asked him about memorable experiences he said one of the things that touched him was the visits that the Occupy Detroit was getting from elderly people who were protestors from the 60's who came to give their support.

There was a gentlemen walking around with a sign that said “Ask me” so I did. His name was Steve. He came from a lower middle class family, in a single parent household, mostly raised by his grandmother. He has a Bachelor's in Sociology and works in wilderness therapy for troubled youths. He has been in Occupy Detroit since it's inception. He commented about how much he loved the strong sense of community in the camp and in the Occupy movement in general.

One of my more memorable conversations was with a man named Terry. Terry came from a family of eight children. Both of his parents worked hard at Chrysler throughout his childhood and they never went hungry but they were also always on the edge of struggling. Terry was plagued by problems with his insulin that would cause Diabetic seizures. These seizures are becoming steadily more and more frequent and severe, and despite being completely lucid and physically able to work even at the ripe age of 53, companies will not hire him because he is considered to be a liability. There quite literally is nothing he can do in the area. He learned about Occupy Detroit when they came into the park taking pictures of it as a possible site for the Occupy protests. He helped design the layout of the tent city and works diligently to help keep the place safe amidst the homeless and dispossessed of Detroit. His Parents were very excited that he became involved, his father being a Viet Nam veteran. When they learned of his involvement they donated two tents for his efforts and helped him with whatever he needed. He said the greatest thing about the work he was doing was that he felt for the first time in his life that he was really part of history.

Another highly memorable person I met was Lucianna, a nice 30 year old girl who despite her small stature seemed to be highly effective in the daunting task of patrolling the tent city along with other members involved with the volunteer security. Throughout the weekend I watched as she fearlessly stood up to people twice her size as needed to calm down any tensions that might of risen among the occupants, some of which were homeless people suffering from mental illness or too much alcohol. She mentioned her first major memory was the first direct action they did in the city. She watched as the police mobilized to try and contain the huge crowd that had gathered to march and it suddenly dawned on her just how big this thing she had become involved in was. She is very dedicated to her role of protecting the camp and taking care of everyone there and seeing to their safety, and she has some great people working with her.

To speak on the “vibe” of the situation is something difficult to put into words. I would say the first word that comes to mind is “profound”. The melding pot was so diverse. There was so much diversity of race, and backgrounds. There was a real sense of family among people who if asked three or four years ago if they had ever pondered camping in the middle of downtown Detroit would of laughed and thought that was silly. When work needed to be done for the community, people came together and got it done. If there was a violent incident due to the typical situations that come up in the ghetto that is Detroit the entire community responded to it with empathy and a clear head. I grew up in the worst parts of Pontiac Michigan and I have never felt as safe in a rough neighborhood as I did there.

The facilitation process was a system for consensus decision making that seemed to work pretty well. They devised a system of hand signals so that people could voice their feelings on a situation without all needing to talk at once. There was a real dedication to be sure that everyone was heard. And while it could be frustrating at times because if many people were participating it could be a slow and arduous process. But overall that frustration seemed to be worth it. It felt good when consensus was reached, as you could feel good about decisions that were made knowing that everyone was on the same page.

The accusations that the “Occupy” movement was disorganized and unfocused were proven to be absolutely bogus. I watched as groups of people came together for meetings without any previous agenda, they developed the agenda, reviewed and approved the agenda and then moved forward. Even if nobody who showed up for the meeting was at the previous meeting, they were able to continue to make progress on any and all projects that needed work.

It has now been a couple of days since I have been to the tent city that was my home away from home for three short days, and I can't get over the desire to go back. There was something about that place that was more “home” to me then I have felt in a long time. I encourage you to get involved in an “Occupy” near you. And I am proud to be part of “Occupy Detroit”.

Friday, July 29, 2011

So a few days ago I got an email from a network claiming it wanted to add V-RADIO to it's roster. The email had the look of spam mail but I decided to reply to that email agreeing to have a phone call with the person in question. So yesterday at 10PM ET I received a phone call from someone saying they are from "Revealing Talk Radio". I am generally up at 10PM however I did find it odd to receive a phone call at such a late hour from someone supposedly representing a real deal internet network. Apparently he thought I was on Central time. I have no idea where he would of gotten that idea. Nor would 9PM generally be an acceptable time for a business phone call at someone's home anyway. But that aside.

The conversation that followed was a blend of pressure sale and confident speak that some salesman use to make it look as though they know far better then you do and you should just do what they say. I tried to explain to him that I have had plenty of experience in the field with people attempting to do what he was describing. And that it has always failed. He cut me off repeatedly and then finally suggested that we would talk over all the details during a phone call today. And that any questions I had would be answered then.

The phone call today consisted of me bringing up concerns I have and asking for direct answers. His reply was that I should of read his website, and it would of answered all of my questions. And that since I had not, he was no longer interested. He then hung up. So I went to his website and saw some of the most absurd prices for the service he is offering I have ever seen. Including asking hosts to pay $250 for one show a week that you could do every day on Blogtalkradio for 35 bucks. Or for free on Talkshoe. With a limit of two hours to the one hour he was offering. Or you could pay him the low low price of $500 to do a daily show that you could also do for 35 dollars on Blogtalkradio or for free on Talkshoe. (Blogtalkradio also pays revenue sharing benefits to it's users. In other words, you make money for having your show there. Though it is generally modest it is well worth it so it generally pays for itself.) There were a few small amenities that he offers with his service but nothing at all that would be reflected in the absolutely absurd prices he was asking.

He later told me that he would be allowing me to be on the network for free. But that he would be charging other people. After how I was treated by him on the phone, and after looking at the prices he was charging for a service you could very easily get for free on other established networks, I could not see even wanting to be part of such a project.

In the emails that followed his rude phone call I then exchanged emails with him that are still ongoing but they mostly consist of him stating that he dislikes that I thought he was rude, but at the same time saying he apparently had every right to be as I should of researched his product on his website.

I have always said that proponents of internet talk radio should stick together, and that is why I am writing this blog to inform people about "Revealing Talk Radio" and offer my advice after being a successful internet radio host with over 220,000 listens to date. Do not pay for what you can get for free, or inexpensively. Do not allow yourself to be bullied or pressured by anyone who claims to be trying to help you when they are not offering you anything that you cannot get for free and free of any hassles from rude individuals who seem to think we need his network when we can accomplish everything he is trying to accomplish at no cost to ourselves and a little work.

If ANYONE out there would like help setting up their own radio show at little to no cost even if your content is not related to what my show is about I will be happy to help you for the sake of encouraging alternative media.

And I promise not to be nasty to you for failing to read details on websites I never asked you to read. :)

This effort looks like a poorly thought out business model at best, or a scam at worst. My advice, stay away.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Note: This article is in reference to the socialist vs capitalist debate, so it doesn't completely apply to TVP vs Capitalist. However, it kind of smashes the economic calculation argument (theory) that we are being told we need to solve and demonstrates how flawed it is.

At first blush, the ECA would appear to be highly plausible. However, on closer inspection we can discern hairline fractures in the very foundations of this model which render it highly vulnerable to sustained criticism. Let us consider some of these defects first before turning our attention to the organisation of production and the allocation of production goods in a socialist economy.

A) Subjective valuation and price

According to Mises and the Austrian School of Economics, the value of goods and services is necessarily subjective and does not inhere in the good or service in question; economic costs are essentially subjective, opportunity costs and utility preferences can only be expressed along an ordinal scale – i.e. ranked – as opposed to a cardinal scale which entails precise measurement. How then do we arrive at the necessary data upon which a system of economic calculation is predicated? Salerno puts it thus. The problem with socialism, he claims, is that it lacks “a genuinely competitive and social market process in which each and every kind of scarce resource receives an objective and quantitative price appraisal in terms of a common denominator reflecting its relative importance in serving (anticipated) consumer preferences. This social appraisal process of the market transforms the substantially qualitative knowledge about economic conditions acquired individually and independently by competing entrepreneurs, including their estimates of the incommensurable subjective valuations of individual consumers for the whole array of final goods, into an integrated system of objective exchange ratios for the myriads of original and intermediate factors of production. It is the elements of this coordinated structure of monetary price appraisements for resources in conjunction with appraised future prices of consumer goods which serve as the data in the entrepreneurial profit computations that must underlie a rational allocation of resources.”4

But what is actually happening in this “transformation process” whereby the “incommensurable subjective valuations” of individuals purportedly come to be expressed as objective exchange ratios or prices? Do the latter in fact actually capture the former? There is a kernel of truth in the claim that they do in that obviously if someone is willing to pay a price for a good he or she must ipso facto subjectively value that good. Otherwise the “willingness to pay” for it would not have arisen. But, of course, in a market economy mere “willingness to pay” is not enough; the means of payment – purchasing power- is what is crucially required and it is only willingness to pay that is backed up by purchasing power that actually affects prices. This is what economists call “effective demand” (presumably to be distinguished from “ineffective demand”). The subjective valuation that a pauper places on a square meal may be considerable but in the absence of the wherewithal to pay for such a meal, this counts for nothing. In short, the subjective valuations individuals place on goods cannot reasonably be said to be captured or embodied by the objective prices such goods attract in the market. Indeed, one might add that to suggest that they do, flatly contradicts a key myth of bourgeois economics – namely, that our wants are essentially “infinite” and the resources to meet them, limited.

It may be objected that while it does not aim to “quantify” our wants as such (along a cardinal scale), price does nevertheless reflect our subjective valuations insofar as it sheds light on our preferences (along an ordinal scale). Thus, if we prefer roast beef to a McDonald’s hamburger this will be reflected in the higher price we would be willing to pay for such an item. However, this still does not get round the basic problem: in a market economy you cannot express a preference if you do not have the means to do so: purchasing power. You might prefer roast beef but after consulting your wallet may discover to your consternation that you will just have to resign yourself to the hamburger instead. While, according to conventional economics, effective demand determines price in conjunction with supply of the goods demanded, this effective demand is itself grossly unequally distributed by virtue of the unequal distribution of income. Austrians respond to this by arguing that such differentials reflect the valuations individuals place on different occupations and the different contributions they make to society (which “society” duly “rewards” them for) but there is no way of testing this claim since such valuations are themselves subject to the limitations of “effective demand”. Salerno’s “integrated system of objective exchange ratios” (prices) reflects or is conditioned by, this unequal distribution of effective demand. Thus, frivolous luxury goods can be “valued” more highly – i.e., attract a higher price – than food for the hungry because a rich elite has vastly more purchasing power at its disposal to competitively bid for, and so push up the price of, the former compared to the latter.

We should bear these points in mind in considering the merits or otherwise of the ECA; it is based on so-called objective data that are fundamentally biased or skewed and cannot be said to correspond truthfully to the subjective valuations of economic actors in the market as claimed. To believe otherwise is to commit what is called the Fallacy of Composition – the illusion that what is true for each part of a whole must be true for the whole It is an error that overlooks the interrelationships between the different parts of the whole.

B) What do we mean by “costs”?

D R Steele contends: “The total cost of producing anything is the total effect in reducing production of other things because of the factors used up. This what we mean by the ‘cost of production’. It is this that we always want to minimise when we produce anything”5. As we saw earlier, this definition of cost equates with opportunity cost. Opportunity costs are often counter-posed to accounting costs . The latter are usually taken to denote the explicit costs represented by the cash outlays that a firm makes in purchasing its inputs, whereas the former are associated with implicit or hidden costs and may be difficult or impossible to quantity, or even be completely unknown. For example, the opportunity cost of spending more money on a new school may be to forego spending this money on improving the local ambulance service which could have meant more lives being saved. But just how do you weigh up the cost of a life?

Going back to our example of consumer good X, we can see that the ECA relies on the notion of accounting cost rather than opportunity cost, despite its copious lip service to the latter. This is because it involves comparing the explicit cash outlays to be made on different combinations of A and B to arrive at a notional “least cost combination”. Certainly there is an opportunity cost in making that decision – this almost goes without saying – but this is not what this example of economic calculation is about. It is not measuring what a factory foregoes in opting to produce 1 unit of Y using method 2. Choosing a least cost combination of factors has essentially to do with accounting costs, not opportunity costs. That being so, one might well ask, how does this help one to calculate the “total effect in reducing production of other things because of the factors used up”? Acknowledging there is, theoretically speaking, a “total effect” is not the same as saying that this is what is being precisely measured – or, indeed, that it can ever be precisely measured. Moreover, who decides which is the “best alternative foregone”? One person’s preference may not be another’s. Such considerations are simply brushed under the carpet by the ECA.

Nevertheless, it is on the point of “precise measurement” that the ECA presses its claim. As Steele points out: “In this case, it so happens that it would be sufficient merely to know which was ‘more’ or ‘less’ but that is just an accident of the way I have set up the example. Generally, we should have to know exactly how much more or less. For instance, if the choice were between a method using 4lbs of rubber and 5 pounds of wood and a method using 5 lbs of rubber and 3 pounds of wood, it would not be enough to know that wood were more costly by weight, then rubber; we should need to know how much more costly”6.

Certainly, accounting costs are amenable to “exact calculation” using monetary prices but the question is what exactly is being accounted for in the process?. “Precise measurements” doesn’t tell us much; a game of monopoly entails precise measurement too but nobody suggests this implies some earth-shattering insight we would be foolish to overlook. What then is the significance of what is being precisely measured using monetary prices?

The ECA asserts that a socialist economy would be unable rationally to chose between different combinations of factors to arrive at a least cost combination. In answer to the obvious retort that a socialist economy would not concern itself with costs in this monetary form, it might be contended that there will still be a need to reckon costs in some other guise and that it is precisely these substantive costs – or if you like, “real world” costs – that the price mechanism is able faithfully to represent via its pattern of objective exchange ratios. But how could this be proven.? To prove this is the case one would have to demonstrate a precise correlation between these “substantive costs” and their monetary representations. One can determine whether such a correlation exists only by measuring one against the other. But that presents a problem for the ECA since, in doing this, one would have inadvertently shown that costs can indeed be independently measured, and rendered calculable, without recourse to market prices.

This places the proponents of the ECA in a invidious position since failure to demonstrate a putative correlation between these substantive costs and their alleged market representations means that all they have to fall back on is a tautology: that only a market economy is able to perform economic calculations couched in market prices. Steele himself has attempted to circumvent this argument with the (specious) claim that it is “parallel to arguments which have frequently been levelled against general theories. Thus every year or so some new genius discovers that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is vacuous, because it says that the fit survive, but there is no way to measure who are fit except by seeing who survive”7. But, of course, the analogy is completely inapt; the relationship between “fitness” and “survival” is a causal one which simply does not apply in this case. What is involved here is nothing quite so grand as a “general theory” but a modest proposition concerning the alleged statistical correlation between two sets of data without causation being invoked in any way.

Finally, if the ECA is really about narrow accounting costs rather than opportunity costs as such then presumably we have a solid basis for testing the proposition that a system of market prices can faithfully calculate the costs incurred in production decisions. Here we are referring to “costs” in their positive sense, not opportunities foregone. It is evident that in this sense, market-based calculations are far from adequate. There is an enormous literature on the problem of externalities and spill-over effects which illustrates this point very well. Suffice to say that in a competitive market economy there will always be an obvious in-built incentive for competing firms to externalise their costs as far as practically possible or to the extent to which they can get away with doing this. Pollution costs are one example of this and typically necessitate some intervention by the state to impose curbs on the offending firm in question in the interests of other firms who may have to indirectly pick up the tab. “Social costs” are another example. A firm may consider it necessary to lay off part of its workforce to reduce its production costs and remain competitive. However, this reduction of its labour costs has costly repercussions for the workers involved and society in general which tend not to be accounted for on the firm’s own balance sheet.

Attempts to get round the problem of externalities and spill-over effects through the application of concepts such “willingness-to-pay” (WTP) and “willingness-to-accept” (WTA) are problematic and provide little, if any, comfort for proponents of the ECA. WTP has to do with what people would be prepared to pay to mitigate or avert some undesirable effect while WTA refers to the level of financial compensation they would be willing to receive for having to put up with such an effect. Mainstream economists tend to regard the costs involved in both instances as roughly equivalent but there is considerable evidence based on surveys to suggest that this is simply not the case – not according to people’s “subjective evaluations” of environmental losses and gains, at any rate.8 In fact, environmental losses tend to be more highly valued than environmental gains even where similar sums of money are involved. There are a number of other problems associated with these techniques (e.g. the tendency to underestimate the value of future resources; the problem of non-use values and option values which are to do with resources that you do not yourself make use of or might only do so at a later date) all of which highlight the shortcomings of market valuations, shortcomings which the ECA tends to gloss over.

C) The problem of “net income”

According to the ECA not only is there a need to discover the least cost combinations of inputs required to produce a given good; there is also a need to ensure that the revenue obtained from the sale of this good is sufficient to cover the cost of producing it. This can only be done by attaching prices to a firm’s inputs (A and B in our example) as well as its output (good X).

“Net income” is the difference between a firm’s revenue or proceeds and its costs. Positive net income is what is usually referred to as profit; negative net income, as loss. As Mises put it, “Every single step of entrepreneurial activities is subject to scrutiny by monetary calculation. The premeditation of planned action becomes commercial pre-calculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting profits and losses”9.

This statement is revealing. It inadvertently highlights a serious flaw in the ECA. The ability to compute profit and loss is what in theory is supposed to ensure the efficient – that is “profitable” – allocation of resources. But it turns out that it ensures nothing of the sort. Just because a system of market prices affords one a set of figures with which one can perform precise calculations does not mean that these figures will turn out to be correct – that is to say, will unerringly guide the entrepreneur towards a positive net income.

As Steele puts it: “Since all production decisions are about the future and the future is always uncertain, decision makers have to make guesses, take gambles, play hunches and follow their experienced noses.”10 and “In the market, entrepreneurs anticipate, speculate, agonise, guess and take risks. They also frequently perform elaborate calculations, aware that the results of such calculations are only as good as their assumptions. Always enveloped in a cloud of ignorance, market decision-makers strain to discern the indefinite contours of the changing shapes that loom ambiguously out of the fog.”11

This seems unambiguous enough but then, curiously, Steele feels prompted to ask: “Does the fact that production is actually guided by estimates of future prices, and not by reading off ‘current’ (recent) prices, destroy the force of the Mises argument? Apparently not, for two reasons: 1. past prices are a guide which helps people to make more accurate (though still fallible) estimates of future prices; and 2. people’s estimates of future prices are eventually confirmed or refuted. There is an objective test of the accuracy of the estimates: profit and loss.”12

Steele’s first point rather undercuts his previous claim that production cannot actually be guided by current (recent) prices and he does not quite seem able to make up his mind on how relevant the latter are. By his own admission, entrepreneurs can and often do get things spectacularly wrong when relying on current /recent prices – the energy crisis of the 1970s being a case in point. It is also to be noted that these current/recent prices are a record of accounting costs, not opportunity costs, and so do not shed much light on the opportunities foregone in making a production decision since the latter are a “tacit reference to hypothetical future income”13 which can only be guessed at. He admits that entrepreneurs are fallible yet does not seem to see the inconsistency in admitting this and claiming that the price system ensures “exact calculation”.

Steele’s second point – that there is an objective test of the accuracy of entrepreneurial estimates – is presumably the more important one but, even so, holds no water. Remember that what we are looking for is some way of reliably guiding the entrepreneur to make sound production decisions concerning net income in the future – otherwise there would be little point in going on about the need for “exact calculation”. The fact that the market process is retrospectively “self-correcting” in eliminating or bankrupting those firms that err (incur an economic loss) in their future estimates is completely irrelevant. The resource allocations these firms committed themselves to constitute what economists call “sunk costs” and cannot be retrieved once made. Bygones, as the saying goes, are bygones. More importantly, there is no guarantee that those entrepreneurs, having had the good fortune to estimate future prices accurately, will continue to do so. We are emphatically not talking about some selective process at work here which incrementally refines the abilities of entrepreneurs generally to make sound economic judgements which Steele seems to be implying. If this were the case then the history of the market economy would manifest itself as a progressive reduction in uncertainty and risk.

On another matter, when Steele refers to profit and loss as an objective test of the accuracy of estimates of future prices one presumes he is using “profit” here to mean accounting profit or net income. However, this is a little confusing. This is because he also uses the term “profit” in another, more specialised, sense as well. The entrepreneur’s return on her capital, he contends, is called “interest” (or what we would normally called profit) and where this is equal to her accounting profits “there is no profit in the strict economic sense. True profit is a return above interest; loss, a return below interest”14. The irony is that such profit can only arise where the economy departs form the abstract model of perfect competition and optimal resource allocation. As Lachmann observes “profits are earned whenever there are price-cost differences; they are thus a typical disequilibrium phenomenon”15. Thus , according to the free marketeers’ own theory of how the market behaves, the very imperfections which they deplore (such as monopolistic tendencies) “are, in fact, key profit-generating dynamics in the economic system. In other words, market imperfections are the main source of profit in the economy”16. Such profit, as Steele points out, is the result of the entrepreneur outguessing the market and benefiting society in the process. Presumably, such benefits would not be forthcoming in the idealised (and completely unrealistic) competitive model of the free market which free marketeers strive to realise and that what is needed instead is a less competitive model in which price distortions are allowed more free play. But that, of course, undermines an important assumption of the ECA about the need for market forces to be given free rein in order to ensure the “accuracy” of market prices.

According to the ECA, in the absence of market prices that allow entrepreneurs to make profit and loss computations, economic efficiency cannot be assured. This, it is argued, is incompatible with the maintenance of a developed economic infrastructure. However, we have seen just how problematic such profit and loss computations are in the real world despite the evidence of a developed economic infrastructure around us (which the proponents of the ECA themselves delight in pointing out and attributing to the market). This suggests that there must be something seriously awry with the theory itself.

In any event, the claim that a socialist economy would need to be able to calculate “net income” in some sense does not stand up to close scrutiny. The notion of “net income” in fact derives purely from the functional requirement of capitalism to realise profit through market exchange – that is, it is system-specific. Certainly, this requires inputs and outputs to be reduced to a common denominator – to facilitate comparison and thereby ensure that when one commodity is exchanged for another, they are equivalent to each other. Indeed, market transactions necessitate such equivalence. However, it does not follow that this kind of comparison making use of a common denominator would be required in a socialist economy. In such an economy, “economic exchange” of any sort would no longer apply. It would not be necessary to determine whether “more” or “less” wealth in general was being created than was being used up in the production of that wealth for the very simple reason that the concept of wealth “in general”, a completely abstract and crudely aggregated notion of wealth, is of no practical use in itself and would be utterly meaningless outside the context of commodity exchange. This emphatically does not mean that a socialist economy will have no way of ensuring that resources would be efficiently allocated (which I will consider later); it simply means that such an economy does not need to operationalise this wholly unsatisfactory notion of “net income” in order to achieve this efficient allocation.

D) Estimating the negative effects of misallocation

Mises was clearly adamant that socialism could not be realised because it lacked any method of rational calculation. The implication of such a claim is that the effect of not having such a method would be so devastating as to prevent socialism from ever being realised. However, as Bryan Caplan points out, this flatly contradicts Mises own opinion that “economic theory gives only qualitative, not quantitative laws”17. According to Mises in Human Action (quoted in Caplan), “economics is not, as ignorant positivists repeat again and again, backward because it is not quantitative. It is not quantitative because there are no constants”. But if that is the case, how could you quantity the negative effects of this supposed misallocation in a hypothetical socialist economy and come to the conclusion that they were so severe as to make socialism infeasible?

The Misesian argument would appear to rest on the claim that while there is only a finite number of options concerning the use of inputs that would lead to their efficient allocation, whereas there is an infinity of options that would result in those same inputs being misallocated. The chances are that without the means of making economic calculations, decision-makers in a socialist economy would chose one of the latter options. As Mises put it, economic calculation “provides a guide amid the bewildering throng of economic possibilities. It enables us to extend judgements of value which apply directly only to consumption goods – or at best to production goods of the lowest order – to all goods of higher orders. Without it, all production by lengthy and roundabout processes would be so many steps in the dark … And then we have a socialist community which must cross the whole ocean of possible and imaginable economic permutations without the compass of economic calculation”18.

However, as we shall see later, a socialist economy would be quite capable of avoiding this fate through the institutionalisation of a set of constraints that steer decision makers towards the efficient allocation of resources. In any case, Mises’ claim about the lack of a reliable compass to guide these decision makers might as well be directed at market capitalism. This is what can be inferred from the Theory of The Second Best formulated Richard Lipsey and Kelvin Lancaster in 195619. Looking at the “general equilibrium” model of the economy, they argued that in order for equilibrium (pareto optimal allocation) to obtain a number of equilibrium conditions need to be simultaneously satisfied such as the supply of all goods being exactly equal to the demand for them, the output price of goods being equal to marginal cost of producing them and the long term profit for all firms being equal to zero. Where just one of these optimal conditions is not met then the ‘second best’ position can only be reached by departing from all the other Paretian conditions. To put it in a nutshell, any single price distortion leads to all other prices being distorted because of its ramifying consequences for exchange ratios throughout the economy and since price distortions are inevitably going to arise in the market, capitalist decision makers will likewise have to contend with whole ocean of possible and imaginable economic permutations in which their ability to perform precise calculations using market prices will be to little avail. This is because such prices, being distorted as it were, will almost by definition be unable to provide a reliable guide (in terms of price theory). Of course the notion of a “general equilibrium” is merely an abstraction and has no empirical basis in fact. While Mises acknowledged this he did not seem to perceive the devastating consequences that this had for his own theory of “economic calculation”.

The implication of Mises’ argument is that the more scope one allows for the free interplay of market forces the more efficient and reliable the allocation process. Can this claim be empirically tested? It is often argued for example that so-called free market economies perform better than their more interventionist, state capitalist, competitors. But this can be for any number of reasons other than “economic calculation”: differences in natural and labour resource endowments, the prevalence of natural disasters, historical circumstances (e.g. civil conflict), the incentive problem in oppressive regimes (a point that Caplan makes) and economic dependence (a reference to “dependency theory” and the argument that the already developed First World systematically “under-develops” the Third World). There is a further problem of disentangling cause and effect. For example, is it the case that relatively successful economies are successful as a result of implementing free market policies or are those policies themselves the result of economic success? Those economies that are more competitive are likely to be more favourably disposed towards free trade for the obvious reason that they have little to fear from competition, whereas, conversely, less competitive or economically successful economies will tend to want to adopt a more protective and interventionist approach to protect their own interests. Indeed this is what enabled Germany, at the end of the 19th century to overtake Britain in terms of industrial production: Whereas the latter was still relatively laissez-faire in its outlook, Germany and other continental economies at the time relied heavily on tariffs and other interventionist measures to build up their industries.

Empirical support for the economic calculation thesis is thus remarkably weak. In any case, there is not, never has been and never will be such a thing as a strictly “free market” economy in the real world. In the real world, the market necessarily operates closely in tandem with the capitalist state, varying only in the degree to which this happens. As Karl Polanyi has noted: “The road to the free market was opened up and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organised and controlled intervention”20.

E) The costs of economic calculation

What is often overlooked is that accounting, while it might concern itself with cutting costs, is itself a significant cost. This has important implications for the ECA. Parallel to a system of physical accounting (see section 5) what we have today as well is a system of monetary accounting. Monetary accounting is a highly complex process in which all enterprises in a capitalist economy must of necessity engage, even though it plays a supernumerary role as far as the physical process of organising production is concerned. In earlier class-based social formations money played a secondary role in the economic life of society; in modern capitalism, however, its influence is all-pervasive. Its purpose is not to ensure the efficient allocation of resources as such but to expedite market exchanges by providing a universal equivalent against which all other commodities exchange, so enabling the computation of profits and losses by competing actors engaged in these market exchanges. That is why it eventually supplanted the traditional system of barter – because of the obvious structural shortcomings of the latter which impeded market exchanges. For example, you cannot swap your pig for two chickens from your neighbour if he or she already has an ample supply of pigs; paying your neighbour in cash overcomes this problem.

As well as enjoining economic actors to engage in monetary accounting, the development of capitalism gave rise to a whole plethora of institutions and economic activities directly or indirectly concerned with the handling and circulation of money rather than the production of use values as such – for example, banks, insurance companies, pay departments, building societies and so on. Indeed, this already vast and steadily proliferating sector of the economy is a natural outgrowth of the systemic needs of an economic system centred on the competitive accumulation of capital; such institutions and activities arose precisely to service those needs. One might want to argue that a bank, for example, performs a useful role in that it lends money to a factory and thus enables the latter to manufacture useful things that consumers in a market economy may value. Therefore, banks perform no less a useful role than factories in the production of these useful things. But this is to engage in a sleight of hand; it is to overlook the distinction that needs to be made between the specific conditions under which a factory has perforce to operate within a given socio-economic system and the physical process of production itself. It is the former that is precisely being questioned which proponents of the ECA, on the other hand, take wholly for granted and assume is seamlessly linked to the latter. That is to say, they assume what they need to prove: that you cannot operate a modern system of production without market prices (and hence those kind of institutions – like banks – linked with market exchanges in capitalism).

It is the elimination of such activities and institutions , essential though they may be to a functioning market economy but unproductive in themselves from the standpoint of producing use values or meeting human needs, that constitutes perhaps the most important (but by no means only), productive advantage that a socialist economy would have over a capitalist economy. The elimination of this structural waste intrinsic to capitalism will free up a vast amount of labour and materials for socially useful production in socialism. Just how much resources will be made available for socially useful production in this way is a moot point. Most estimates suggest at least a doubling of available resources by comparison with the present.21 Yet the proponents of the ECA, while claiming that socialism would sink into the slough of inefficiency and falling output without the guidance of market prices, seem wilfully determined to deny socialism this particular productive advantage that it has over capitalism by positing the necessity for institutions such as banks – or some analogue of banking – in a socialist economy. This is a specious claim; it is unwittingly reading into socialism the functional requirements of capitalism.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Recently there have been some disagreements between Peter Joseph and the Venus Project. And now my research on the “TROLL” documentary gets more data in the form of all of the people spreading hysteria that this will mean that the movement will somehow fold. I am going to be blunt about this. This quite simply, is nonsense.

Peter Joseph helped the movement a great deal with research, making great movies, and providing some good guidance. But he was not even involved with the vast majority of the day to day work of the movement. He rarely attended meetings, and does not generally get involved with any of the working aspects of the movement itself. The chapter coordinators, moderators, etc. handled all of that. And while this obviously means that there won't be anymore films coming from Peter about the Venus Project, it does not suddenly mean the sky is falling.

Virtually every function of the movement was already being run by other people. Peter has stated he will continue to fund the global movement's work. Which is highly generous. He is not leaving the movement. He is just stepping back from any form of spokesman role. This does not by any means that he is no longer an activist for this direction. But the newsletter, chapter coordination, etc. was all already handled by other people anyway. And those people did not suddenly cease to exist.

Peter was never the leader. Despite propaganda to the contrary. And everything I point out above was part of that. He would share his views just like everyone else. He of course had some authority over the website that he pays for and administrates, but it's not like he called up every chapter coordinator and gave them directions or “orders”. It's not like he wrote every single newsletter article. It's not like he did all of the planning and the speaking. He was already asking us to step up more as he was going to be backing away before any of this. Because he needs to. He needs and deserves a break. And the reality is that if Peter stopped doing anything in the movement for a month, the average member of the movement would not even notice. You know why? Because Peter Joseph was not the movement. So much work was done by other people behind the scenes.

I am asking people to stop contributing to the hysteria. Stop posting links to these trolls videos. They are having quite the laugh at our expense. And your giving them a reward. If people do post these videos then explain to them that this is NOT the end of the Zeitgeist movement. Share this blog post with them. Right now the trolls are trying to cause a panic in the movement. It is important that people understand that the movement is not going anywhere. So Peter backs away for a while. Does this mean that suddenly everyone who saw his films doesn't feel the RBE is the best solution? Obviously not.

I absolutely appreciate everything Peter has done. And will continue to support his work. I look forward to his upcoming film about the impact of war.

I heard the website is down. If you guys want to talk about this stuff my forums are open at V-RADIO.org. And yes, I am still doing broadcasts. And yes, when you wake up tomorrow, there will still be a Zeitgeist Movement.